To be really upset that nursery have assumed this is the reason...

[Jc56]

My son is nearly 4 and has been attending the same nursery since 18 months old, his older sister also went here. He goes Monday to Friday and has made strong friendships with another boy his age and his cousin who also attends so he tends to just play with them 2 which nursery have told me many times but they didn't say it was a problem.

Last year, he was friends with an Asian boy who's now left for school. His key worker is Asian and they have a BRILLIANT relationship, she's absolutely amazing with him.

So I was really taken a back today when I collected him and the nursery manager asked if she could have a word with me. She said today, they was doing an activity which involved holding hands with other children and DS friend & cousin wasn't in this particular activity. She said he wouldn't hold hands with any Asian children and maybe it's because he doesn't have many friends outside of nursery who are Asian or that they have a different skin colour so he's unsure 🤔

I didn't even know how to respond, I did point out he's never been keen on interacting with ALL the children and he has just had a few strong friendships. It is not unusual for him to not want to hold hands with other children.

It's really upset me that I felt she was insinuating DS purposely wouldn't hold hands with these children because they have a different skin colour to him, he's a child! And he has made friends with children of different races not that it matters to me or DS so I'm really just baffled why this came out of the blue today. She said they've never had "this" problem with him before now. I'm not sure whether to speak to DS about it or not, the manager said she hasn't mentioned it to him?

I cant understand why she's decided that because he wouldn't hold hands with other children she's concluded it must be because they are Asian 🤔🤔🤔

I can see why you would be taken aback at the time @Jc56 and now feel that you would like to discuss it further and yes indeed you should. I would be telling her that on reflection you would like to discuss this further and ask her questions where she has to shit or get off the pot ( nicely of course). Prepare yourself with questions as to forcing children together, their policies on mixing and I would be asking who she has discussed this with further, whether it has been written down anywhere etc. In the light of her answers I would be considering moving him.

is Nursery attached to school or any higher ups past this worker? I’d be drafting a letter and asking for a meeting why they are assuming prejudice when they are actually in the wrong for forcing boundaries to be broken and demanding physical touch without consent from 4 year olds.

This seems more like a huge over reaction from you tbh and everyone saying they’d pull DC out of nursery because of it.

A good nursery with a settled child who has built strong, stable relationships with other children and staff is invaluable.

I don’t know why you’ve taken this to heart OP. The nursery asked a question you could have just shrugged it off. It sounds like he just didn’t want to hold hands.

It's because, if the manager has called Op in, the likelihood is that they've written it up as a concern. It could have repercussions on the child's future education if he's flagged as a potential racist.

The over-reaction is from the nursery staff, who seem to think that a child refusing to hold hands is serious enough for the manager to raise it with the parent.

“She said he wouldn't hold hands with any Asian children and maybe it's because he doesn't have many friends outside of nursery who are Asian”

Have you reported the worker? If she said this to you then it’s a disciplinary matter at a minimum.

I really find it difficult to understand how and why a trained child care worker would say this to a parent.

If you can’t understand that the child was only differentiating between his friends then you’re part of the problem. He wasn’t being racist. The child accused has mixed race cousins and the family is as far from racist as you can get. So yes brown and white had probably being discussed in their household as it was and is the very fabric of their family.

“Flagged as a potential racist…repercussions on future education”😭

I don't have nursery aged children but I'm a bit appalled that we haven't moved beyond giving children no bodily autonomy to be honest. He didn't want to hold hands. It's ok of them to gently encourage it - it's not okay of them to make a drama out of it.

Bonkers to jump to conclusions like that on one incident.

But on a wider note, young kids and babies absolutely do respond differently to people of different skin colours. There have been experiments and studies showing that even young babies will prefer to go to someone of the same race as themselves. https://www.utoronto.ca/news/racial-bias-may-begin-babies-six-months-u-t-research-reveals Channel 4 did a bit on it during one of their documentaries about children's development and it showed the same - when there were two adult present of different races, the child would always go to the adult of their own race. It's fascinating and a lot about lack of exposure rather than any negative experiences. (Not really relevant to the situation here but I find it interesting).

Didn't anyone do any reading about anti-racism as part of the Black Lives Matter movement?

We are all racist. We can't help it. Our brains are designed to form connections fast and it's one of the consequences. We form racist shortcuts and racist shorthands in our minds.

Being from a mixed-race family or whatever makes no difference.

We are all supposed to do the work of recognising where these shortcuts arise in our own minds, even when we haven't said anything, and challenge that within ourselves.

So: children will say racist things and have racist thoughts. That doesn't mean they are bad, or should be punished.

It means they should be educated, and learn how to challenge these assumptions in their minds. As we all should. No shame, just everyone together trying to do better.

Everything else aside, I can’t correlate the whole consent teaching with forcing kids to hold hands regardless of anything else.

Most adults would say ok let’s continue regardless, I’d be concerned about how much they pushed such a none issue to cause this whole situation in the first place.

But the nursery worker didn’t say he was racist. They noticed that he didn’t want to hold hands with any Asian children so they mentioned it to the mum.

In the same way I was once told DC wouldn’t go to nursery staff if they wore their hair in a different way to normal or any matter of other things kids do because their kids and they’re learning about the world.

Depending on the area some children might not see anyone with a different skin colour to them outside of nursery or they might not have any books that show people with different coloured skin.

As it happens in the OPs case it sounds like he just didn’t want to hold hands but for some children it might have been useful information for the parents so know so that they could have conversations about how different people have different coloured skin. The OP was told about it so she can make that judgement.

The nursery are probably just trying to work with you to get the best out of your DC.

Thats madness.
So the nursery are so intent on being seen to be doing the ‘right thing’ on alleged racism they are prepared to force a very young child into physical contact beyond their comfort levels?
what an abhorrent message to send to a child! Ie. It doesn’t matter if you feel comfortable, you HAVE to touch others or have them touch you.
surely that’s a safeguarding message gone totally astray?

Nursery - that's an interesting point of view. As you'll no doubt be aware my son spends the vast majority of his time in nursery and this is where he forms his friendships and learns about social interactions, where do you think he's learned that? And if you believe the children here are forming racist biases against Asian children, what are you doing to promote more diversity and inclusiveness?

....see how they like to be receiving end of such nonsense.

She didn't pull me in, she just asked to have a word when I was picking him up. I am going to ask about the holding hands thing (DS is saying it was a game) and ask if they've written this down as irs ridiculous. Poor Ds keeps saying I didn't want to hold hands

I remember when I was very little not wanting to hold hands with some of the other children because they always had sweaty hands - or bitten nails (bitten nails still squick me).

They noticed that he didn’t want to hold hands with any Asian children so they mentioned it to the mum.

He wasn’t objecting to holding hands with Asian children. He was objecting to holding hands with any children.

@Jc56 do you only socialize with people of your race? What about your child’s books at home… are they diverse? Not saying that your baby is prejudice, but if he did refuse to hold hands with children who didn’t look like him and happily held with others that did, then maybe he is just a little?

id also like to note that I dislike how schools force children to sing kumbaya and be besties and play together when some might not want that. Sounds like your boys wishes weren’t respected, when he said he didn’t want to hold hands. Forcing a child to hold hands when they don’t want to is teaching them that their boundaries aren’t important.

It is also the very fabric of my own family unit and it's a social responsibility to teach your children that it's not ok to to go around naming friends as Brown Sam, Slitty eye Simon or Black bobby. It's just not

Going back nearly 20 yrs, my now 26 yr old son was in reception and said very innocently to a girl in his class that she had brown skin, they were doing self portrait paintings of themselves. I was informed of this after school and told that it would have to be noted down on his school record as a racist comment!
As I said above, he is now 26 and has managed to make it through life without turning in the raging racist his primary school thought he was!

but if he did refuse to hold hands with children who didn’t look like him and happily held with others that did, then maybe he is just a little?

He didn’t hold hands happily with anyone. That’s the point. He didn’t want to hold hand and they tried to persuade him to hold hands with multiple different children.

Their concern is that when he gave in to their badgering it was to hold hands with a white child.

He's socialised with children from other races. We have friends who are Polish, he loves playing with their children. He does play with children of other races at nursery - my point was today he didn't want to hold hands with ANY of the children and eventually they persuaded him to hold hands with another little boy who happened to be white also, he wasn't just holding hands with him because he's white. He's told me a few times now he didn't want to hold hands with anyone. He has diverse books and watches diverse TV programmes. He's never actually questioned me about skin colour, race etc. Nursery have never said anything like this before today

It’s not racist though is it. It’s using a descriptive word that could be seen as offensive. Of course a child should be taught not to call other kids Sam Brown, Charlie Fat, Dave Short, Bobbie Wheelchair etc, for the reasons you’ve stated. But they call them those things because they say what they see, not because they are prejudiced against dark skinned , fat, short or disabled people. They should be taught not to, but it’s wrong to label a young child racist in that situation.

I agree- It's a racist action, not a racist child...and I agree that children should be taught and not called racist. Children aren't inherently racist but they learn what's acceptable. Like they aren't inherently mean but they need to be taught not to bite and kick to get their way (biting and kicking is also perfectly rational and natural). When a school highlights it, it's not because they are saying a child is racist. They are teaching the correct behaviour - as you've said they should.

If you're otherwise happy with the nursery and he's settled I wouldn't take him out. She might have mentioned what she'd seen but not thought more about it.